#Art et Essai

[gbhbl]

Horror Movie Review: Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)

Sasha is a teenage vampire who's uncomfortable about the idea of killing, that is until she befriends Paul, a boy with suicidal tendencies.

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is a French-language Canadian vampire comedy horror film directed by Ariane Louis-Seize, releasing in 2023. It stars Sara Montpetit as Sasha, a teenage vampire who befriends Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a boy with suicidal tendencies. Sasha is traumatized at a childhood birthday party after her family attacks and eats a clown they had hired to…

[mllenugget]

Gardian Miku

She says that if you support bullfighting in any shape or form then vai t’en cagar a la vinha e pòrta me la clau

France → Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur → Bouches du Rhône → Camargue

[bernardcalet]

Figurant, 2013

Neons

Exposition « Winterreise »

Galerie Art et essai, Université Rennes 2

[nekropsii]

The thing about Analysis is that no one has a perfect understanding of any piece of fiction - especially not something as dense, intricate, storied, and personal as Homestuck - so the appeal of Analysis is half in the information itself and half in the character of the Analyst.

No Analyst is ever going to be 100% correct, all the time, forever. Especially not incontestably so. I've definitely posted things that are either wrong or I just do not agree with nowadays. People evolve. Realizations are had. Thoughts, feelings, interests, personal politics, beliefs, times, and lives change, and therefore so does the lens in which the Analyst is viewing their media of choice.

Analysis is a Conversation more than it is a Definite Relaying of Facts. It is an evolving dialogue. It isn't comparable to a pure, mechanical summary of a plot or character thread, it is an Art Form. People stick by an Artist because they enjoy their Style - an intangible little thing, also constantly in flux, sometimes in minute ways and sometimes in drastic ways, as the Artist continues to hone their craft, and live the life they've been given. Same rules apply to Analysis. I just use words as a brush and a pre-existing piece of fiction as my canvas to express what I, in the moment, believe to be truths, and what I, in the moment, feel, and what I, in the moment, think is worth talking about. These things can change after a decade, a year, a month, a week, a day, an hour.

Analysts do not think or talk about fiction while seeing them as rigid mathematical equations that can be definitively solved. They do not view fiction through cold, robotic eyes, seeing only hard facts and definite truths. An Analyst does not necessarily see an indisputable "correct way" to read a piece of fiction, either. They are viewing art through a lens infinitely warped, and scratched, and colored and recolored by who they are as a person and what their circumstances are. Your favorite Analyst's read of a piece of fiction is deeply revealing of who they are as a person, what they find important, what they've been through, their politics, et cetera.

But that's all obvious, isn't it? That an Artist's work is personal. We all get caught up in our opinions on how right or wrong we are as people. And that's all fair play - it's to be expected when you post your feelings on the Internet. But not enough love is given to the fact that this is Art, too.

The humble Essay on Fiction is just as soul-bearing as a Poem or a Painting. How beautiful that is.

[inlandempir]

post on one of the dev forums for disco elysium, titled "THE BENEFITS OF A MODERN FANTASY WORLD". text version beneath the cut

There's been a lot of art and tech talk so far, it's all kinda dry or saccharine. I think it's time to juice it up by throwing in a proper essay.

THE BENEFITS OF A MODERN FANTASY WORLD

The world of No Truce! (we do have a proper name for it, but we’re shy) is not what you’d call “a generic genre world”. It is not pseudo-medieval stasis, as Forgotten Realms was, nor is it Fallout’s campy barbarism with guns. It is also not a Harry Potter/Batman/vampire fantasy world, which is basically “our world with a secret/special world within it”. Neither is it the tech-obsessed ‘punks’ of steam and cyber. It’s a modern fantasy world, a fantasy world in its modernity, which roughly corresponds to the middle part of our XXth century. Now that kind of thing opens up an array of new possibilities. It is a world with a promise of non-staticness, meaning, things appear undecided — they could go one way or the other. It is close enough to our own world for things to have meaning in it, it is a proper frame in which to explore themes relevant to our own society such as bigotry, power relations, politics, bureaucratic apparati, geopolitical relations, philosophy, ideology, religion et cetera. A pseudo-medieval world is not a proper frame for truly exploring themes of, for example, sexuality, for it lacks 1) a proper concept of sexuality, 2) an actual idea of societal progress and 3) a clear ideological dominant, which would be the place where values come from. All you can do in a static, societally unstructured world is give out-of-place shoutouts to present day communities for cheap popularity (“this is exactly my sexual orientation, how did they know?!”).

We find the ideological dominant missing because the western world is traditionally culturally critical of ideological dominants – critical of both state and religion. Anyhow, a classic fantasy world would feature two main ideologies – the “good” and the “evil”, of which the former is selfless and compassionate, but the other one is selfish and cruel. The attempts to overcome that have given us the Grittywelt – a world in which everyone is an asshole and pessimism rules the day. Unsurprisingly, Grittywelt is also static as hell and meaningful change is foreclosed from it. It is a “protection from false hopes”. As such, it is heavily unrealistic. Much more realistic would be people living in super gritty conditions, but not looking the part, that is, not really noticing the abnormal harshness of their conditions, because they don’t have much to compare them to, and being hopeful towards the next day, because surprise! This is how you do it. Survive, I mean. Being depressed is a luxury. In a way, I’d say we’re trying to create the obverse of the Grittywelt – a world in which everyone is empathizable, sort of a hero of their own story.

The modern era is also a fitting vessel for anachronisms – do we not have actual cyborg limbs and donkey-pulled carts operating in the same world at the modern era? Capitalism can also contain little feudalisms in a way, in which a single man or single family controls the entire economy of a town or a village and profits from it. And at the same time, it can also contain little socialist utopias, scientist villages, in which everything is provided by the State. Aside from being a basic feature of reality (anachronism is nothing more than time failing to fit the stereotype about it), it is also a lovable creative tool, allowing for a plethora of what-if-scenarios. Imagine a modern world, only without television; imagine a modern world in which there never was a global war, imagine a world in which fossil fuels are less available. Now, if you will, imagine one which has forgotten its antiquity, and one, in which there is not just water between the continents, but something worse as well — an anti-reality mass we call “pale” (also more on that later). Now imagine one, which has a legitimate and operative “religion of history” in place, which seeks for people it deems special enough to be the “vessel of progress”. (This is not an alternate history thing, by the way. An alternate history takes place in our world quite recognizably and has no more than one divergence point from history as it happened.)

One might ask, why would we not create an even more modern world, if we wanted to maximise our possibilities? Well one of the answers is that it would have destroyed the necessary element of escapism, another is that we cannot create a good alternate Information Era because we ourselves fail to understand the Information Era (More precicely, we have the information era in its infancy and it works via radio relays). We are too close to it and it is too new to understand it, it is “in progress”. The third reason would be that technology is not a fascinating subject for modern science fiction. It’s become a natural part of our reality. We don’t believe it’s going to save us anymore – it has failed to deliver for too long. I am of the belief that the themes of science fiction today are societal, political and psychological (one could maybe add aesthetical to it, for we also love the world for its beauty). All fantastic or sci-fi elements are means for best exploring those themes.

I have filled my page. That’s all for the time being. Thank you for reading.

Martin Luiga Writer

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Inupiaq Books

This post was inspired by learning about and daydreaming about visiting Birchbark Books, a Native-owned bookstore in Minneapolis, so there will be some links to buy the books they have on this list.

Starting Things Off with Two Inupiaq Poets

Joan Naviyuk Kane, whose available collections include:

Hyperboreal

Black Milk Carbon

The Cormorant Hunter's Wife

She also wrote Dark Traffic, but this site doesn't seem to carry any copies

Dg Nanouk Okpik, whose available collections include

Blood Snow

Corpse Whale

Fictionalized Accounts of Historical Events

A Line of Driftwood: the Ada Blackjack Story by Diane Glancy, also available at Birchwood Books, is a fictionalized account of Ada Blackjack's experience surviving the explorers she was working with on Wrangel Island, based on historical records and Blackjack's own diary.

Goodbye, My Island by Rie Muñoz is a historical fiction aimed at younger readers with little knowledge of the Inupiat about a little girl living on King Island. Reads a lot like an American Girl book in case anyone wants to relive that nostalgia

Blessing's Bead by Debby Dahl Edwardson is a Young Adult historical fiction novel about hardships faced by two generations of girls in the same family, 70 years apart. One reviewer pointed out that the second part of the book, set in the 1980s, is written in Village English, so that might be a new experience for some of you

Photography

Menadelook: and Inupiaq Teacher's Photographs of Alaska Village Life, 1907-1932 edited by Eileen Norbert is, exactly as the title suggests, a collection of documentary photographs depicting village life in early 20th century Alaska.

Nuvuk, the Northernmost: Altered Land, Altered Lives in Barrow, Alaska by David James Inulak Lume is another collection of documentary photographs published in 2013, with a focus on the wildlife and negative effects of climate change

Guidebooks (i only found one specifically Inupiaq)

Plants That We Eat/Nauriat Niģiñaqtuat: from the Traditional Wisdom of Iñupiat Elders of Northwest Alaska by Anore Jones is a guide to Alaskan vegetation that in Inupiat have subsisted on for generations upon generations with info on how to identify them and how they were traditionally used.

Anthropology

Kuuvangmiut Subsistence: Traditional Eskimo Life in the Latter Twentieth Century by Douglas B. Anderson et al details traditional lifestyles and subsistance customs of the Kobuk River Inupiat

Life at the Swift Water Place: Northwest Alaska at the Threshold of European Contact by Douglas D. Anderson and Wanni W. Anderson: a multidisciplinary study of a specific Kobuk River group, the Amilgaqtau Yaagmiut, at the very beginning of European and Asian trade.

Upside Down: Seasons Among the Nunamiut by Margaret B. Blackman is a collection of essays reflecting on almost 20 years of anthropological fieldwork focused on the Nunamiut of Anuktuvuk Pass: the traditional culture and the adaption to new technology.

Nonfiction

Firecracker Boys: H-Bombs, Inupiat Eskimos, and the Roots of the Environmental Movement by Dan O'Neill is about Project Chariot. In an attempt to find peaceful uses of wartime technology, Edward Teller planned to drop six nukes on the Inupiaq village of Point Hope, officially to build a harbor but it can't be ignored that the US government wanted to know the effects radiation had on humans and animals. The scope is wider than the Inupiat people involved and their resistance to the project, but as it is no small part of this lesser discussed moment of history, it only feels right to include this

Fifty Miles From Tomorrow: a Memoir of Alaska and the Real People by William L. Iģģiaģruk Hensley is an autobiography following the author's tradition upbringing, pursuit of an education, and his part in the Alaska Native Settlement Claims Act, where he and other Alaska Native activists had to teach themselves United States Law to best lobby the government for land and financial compensation as reparations for colonization.

Sadie Bower Neakok: An Iñupiaq Woman by Margaret B. Blackman is a biography of the titular Sadie Bower Neakok, a beloved public figure of Utqiagvik, former Barrow. Neakok grew up one of ten children of an Inupiaq woman named Asianggataq, and the first white settler to live in Utqiagvik/Barrow, Charles Bower. She used the out-of-state college education she received to aid her community as a teacher, a wellfare worker, and advocate who won the right for Native languages to be used in court when defendants couldn't speak English, and more.

Folktales and Oral Histories

Folktales of the Riverine and Costal Iñupiat/Unipchallu Uqaqtuallu Kuungmiuñļu Taģiuģmiuñļu edited by Wanni W. Anderson and Ruth Tatqaviñ Sampson, transcribed by Angeline Ipiiļik Newlin and translated by Michael Qakiq Atorak is a collection of eleven Inupiaq folktales in English and the original Inupiaq.

The Dall Sheep Dinner Guest: Iñupiaq Narratives of Northwest Alaska by Wanni W. Anderson is a collection of Kobuk River Inupiaq folktales and oral histories collected from Inupiat storytellers and accompanied by Anderson's own essays explaining cultural context. Unlike the other two collections of traditional stories mentioned on this list, this one is only written in English.

Ugiuvangmiut Quliapyuit/King Island Tales: Eskimo Historu and Legends from Bering Strait compiled and edited by Lawrence D. Kaplan, collected by Gertrude Analoak, Margaret Seeganna, and Mary Alexander, and translated and transcribed by Gertrude Analoak and Margaret Seeganna is another collection of folktales and oral history. Focusing on the Ugiuvangmiut, this one also contains introductions to provide cultural context and stories written in both english and the original Inupiaq.

The Winter Walk by Loretta Outwater Cox is an oral history about a pregnant widow journeying home with her two children having to survive the harsh winter the entire way. This is often recommended with a similar book detailing Athabascan survival called Two Old Women.

Dictionaries and Language Books

Iñupiat Eskimo Dictionary by Donald H. Webster and Wilfred Zibell, with illustrations by Thelma A. Webster, is an older Inupiaq to English dictionary. It predates the standardization of Inupiaq spelling, uses some outdated and even offensive language that was considered correct at the time of its publication, and the free pdf provided by UAF seems to be missing some pages. In spite of this it is still a useful resource. The words are organized by subject matter rather than alphabetically, each entry indicating if it's specific to any one dialect, and the illustrations are quite charming.

Let's Learn Eskimo by Donald H. Webster with illustrations by Thelma A. Webster makes a great companion to the Iñupiat Eskimo Dictionary, going over grammar and sentence structure rather than translations. The tables of pronouns are especially helpful in my opinion.

Ilisaqativut.org also has some helpful tools and materials and recommendations for learning the Inupiat language with links to buy physical books, download free pdfs, and look through searchable online versions

[spelllingandthemysteryschool]

i do like to believe every work of art properly comes into your life at the exact moment you need it. every painting i have loved i saw when it meant something to me that it would not have before. every poem i’ve loved appeared before me only when some part of it was sure to strike a chord deep inside my heart. and i think sometimes you read an essay or watch a movie or listen to a song without really taking it in and then it comes back around for you to engage with again and really truly be moved by when the time is right. et cetera

[ask-the-koopa-family]

A little story between Bowser and Cherry...where Cherry speaks French👀

Art/story is mine dont copy/repost!

The evening air was cool and crisp, the stars scattered like glittering jewels over the castle balcony. Bowser leaned heavily against the railing, his gaze fixed on the horizon. It was rare for him to have moments like this—quiet, peaceful, and undisturbed.

Cherry strolled up beside him, her movements graceful and deliberate. She rested her elbows on the railing, her lips curling into a sly smile. “Well, well… Is the mighty King Bowser… relaxing?” she teased, her voice dripping with playful amusement.

Bowser grunted, glancing at her briefly before looking back out at the night. “Even kings deserve a moment of peace,” he replied, his tone gruff but not unkind.

Cherry tilted her head, studying him with a mischievous glint in her eye. “It’s nice to see you like this. Almost… charmant.”

Bowser’s brow furrowed as he turned to her, confused. “Charmant? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cherry chuckled softly, leaning closer to him. “Oh, rien… just a little French. But its easy, it means… charming.” Her gaze lingered on him, her smile widening as she watched his tough exterior begin to crack.

Bowser blinked, caught off guard. “French, huh? Since when do you speak… that?”

Cherry’s grin turned playful, her voice lowering to a murmur. “Since always, mon roi,” she said smoothly, her words rolling off her tongue like silk. She stepped closer, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Tu sais, tu es vraiment séduisant quand tu essaies d’être dur.”

Bowser stiffened, feeling his stomach flip at her tone. “What… what does that mean?” he stammered, his usual confidence faltering.

Cherry’s laugh was light and teasing as she reached out, brushing her fingers against his arm. “It means you’re very… attractive when you act tough.”

Bowser’s face turned red, and he tried to compose himself, puffing out his chest. “W-well, I am tough!”

Cherry smirked, her expression unrelenting. “Bien sûr… mais tu es aussi mignon, tu sais.”

His eyes widened, the unfamiliar word tripping him up. “M-mignon? What’s that now?”

Cherry giggled, her fingers grazing his hand as she leaned on the railing again. “It means you’re cute.”

Bowser’s jaw dropped slightly, his flustered expression earning another laugh from Cherry. “I—uh… you can’t just say stuff like that and expect me to… uh…”

“Oh, but I think I can,” Cherry said with a wink, leaning closer until their faces were just inches apart. “You like it, don’t you? Admit it, mon roi.”

Bowser cleared his throat, trying desperately to regain control of the situation. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cherry’s grin widened as she leaned even closer, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “Peut-être que tu n’es pas aussi coriace que tu le penses.”

Bowser’s heart raced as he stared at her, his breath catching. The words, her tone, the way her eyes sparkled with teasing confidence—it was too much. “Alright,” he muttered, his voice quieter now. “Maybe… maybe I don’t mind it.”

Cherry smiled triumphantly, brushing her fingers along his cheek. “I thought so.” She stepped back just enough to meet his gaze fully, her expression softening. “You know, Bowser… you don’t always have to be the tough guy. I like you just as you are—charmant, coriace, et mignon.”

Bowser let out a huff, finally managing a small smirk. “You really like this French stuff, huh?”

Cherry nodded, her tone sincere now. “I do. And it’s even better when it flusters you.” She slipped her hand into his, her smile turning tender. “But seriously… I’m glad I’m here with you. Pour toujours.”

Bowser didn’t fully understand the last words, but the warmth in her voice was unmistakable. He gave her hand a light squeeze, his smirk softening into something almost shy. “Yeah… me too.”

Under the starlit sky, the King and Queen stood together, their bond growing stronger with every word, every glance, and every shared moment of quiet affection.

[fruity-pontmercy]

Les Mis adaptations and apolitical appropriation

I think it's no secret on this blog that I love the original Les Mis 1980 concept album in French, and that I also love comparing different versions of the stage musical. I've noticed that Les Mis seems to get progressively more vaguely apolitical as time goes on, not only in the way it's viewed in our culture, but in the actual text as well.

It's natural for specifics to be lost in adaptation. It's easier to get people to care about 'the people vs. the king' in a relatively short musical rather than actually facing the audience with the absolute mess that were 19th century french politics (monarchist orleanists vs monarchist legitimists vs imperialist vs bonapartist democrats vs every flavour of republican imaginable). Still, I feel that as time goes on, as more revivals and adaptations of the stage musical come out, the more watered down its politics become. Like, Les Mis at it's core is just meant to be a fancily written, drawn out political essay, right?

In a way I feel that the 1980 concept album almost tried to modernise it with its symbols of progress. Yes, through Enjolras' infamous disco segment (and other similar allusions to the ideals of social change), but perhaps most interestingly to me, through one short line that threw me off when I first heard it, because it seems so insignificant, but might actually be the most explicitly leftist line of all of Les Mis.

"Son coeur vibrait à gauche et il le proclama" (roughly "His heart beat to the left and he proclaimed it" i.e: he was a leftist) Feuilly says, while speaking of the now dead général Lamarque in Les Amis de L'ABC.

What's that? An actual mention of leftism??? in MY vaguely progressive yet apolitical musical??? More seriously, this mention of leftism, clashing with the rest of the musical due to it's seeming anachronism, is interesting not because it's actually more political than anything else in Les Mis, rather, because it's not scared to explicitly name what it's trying to do.

But we've come a long way from the Concept Album days, it's been 43 years, and Les Misérables is now one of the most famous and beloved musicals in the entire world. It's been revived and reimagined and adapted in a million ways, in different mediums, in different languages and countries, and it's clear that it's changed along with it's audience.

On top of pointing out a cool line in my favourite version of the musical, I wanted to write this post to reflect on the perception of the political message of this work. We as a Les Mis fandom on Tumblr are very political, I don't need to tell you that, however, I feel that because this very left leaning space has sprung out of a work we all love so much, we oftentimes forget to revisit it from a more objective point of view.

Les Misérables has a history of being misrepresented, this has been true since it's publication, since american confederate soldiers became entranced with their censored translation Lee's Miserables. However, with it's musical adaptation, this misinterpretation has been made not only more accessible but also easier. As much as I love musical theatre and I think it is at it's best an incredible art form able to communicate complex themes visulally by the masses for the masses, I think it'd be idealistic to ignore the fact that the people who can afford to go see musicals regularly are, usually, not the common folk. Broadway and the West End are industries which, like most, need money to keep them afloat, and are loved people of all political backgrounds (and unfortunately, often older conservatives) not just communists on tumblr. We've seen the way Les Miz UK's social media team constantly misses the mark regarding different social issues, and the way Cameron Makintosh has used the musical to propagate his transphobia, and most of us can agree that these actions are in complete antithesis with the message of Les Misérables as a novel.

But I must ask, how does Les Mis ,as a West End musical in it's current form, actually drive a leftist message, and how are we as a community helping if every time someone relating to the musical messes up if we just claim they "don't get it"?

I'm thinking in particular of incidents like last october, where Just Stop Oil crashed Les Mis at the West End. Whether you think it's good activism or not is not the question I think, this instance is interesting particularly because it shows that, outside of Les Misérables analysis circles and fandom spaces, it is not recognised as an inherently leftist, political or activist work, and instead of just saying they completely missed the point of the musical, I think it'd be interesting to take a step back and look at what the musical as it stands actually represents in our culture today.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, so I won't try to give one, but I do hope we can reflect on this a bit.

[christian-dubuis-santini]

Voilà qui n’est pas sans rappeler le formidable essai de Thomas de Quincey "De l'assassinat considéré comme un des beaux-arts" où l'on lit: "Pour peu qu'un homme se laisse aller à l'assassinat, il en viendra bientôt à boire et à enfreindre le sabbat, et de là il tombera dans l'impolitesse et la nonchalance."

On commence par vouloir inoculer un produit génique expérimental à tout le monde, puis on nie la démocratie en ne prenant pas en compte le vote des deux dernières élections et on finit par ne plus savoir conjuguer des verbes en français…

[racxnteur]

Incomeless; will proofread your fics! (Or anything else.)

I'm not sure how to head this with a snazzy, attention-catching image given I'm not offering an obviously graphic service like art commissions, but let's give it a go...

Hello, I'm your friendly neighborhood disabled unemployed transgender queer on the internet. I have not posted a great amount about the details on this blog for privacy reasons, but I am currently in an untenable familial/financial living situation, which I am actively working to get out of. My primary barrier to disentangling myself from the pertinent parties is a lack of income. I've been unable to pursue traditional means of work due to being multiply disabled (slash chronically ill, slash treatment-resistant, et cetera...), but I do not qualify for SSI or unemployment, so I am stuck trying to find other ways of making money.

This is where you come in... If you'd like to help, you can:

$$ Hire me $$ to proofread your fics, essays, and more!

Click below for info! (I also may add separate posts for diversity reading and/or other writing- and editing-related services.)

For $0.00855/word *OR BEST BID*, I will vet your work of writing before you publish it, checking for mistakes in spelling, capitalization, & punctuation, missed words, inconsistencies of tense, formatting, & POV, and miscellaneous grammatical errors. Never again need you fear posting a finished chapter and discovering a slew of typos after the fact; no matter how sleep-deprived or late at night the state of writing, I will ensure your text is ship-shape. Or, if you happen to be interested in having other types of writing proofread before submission--essays, comics or webtoons, letters, transcripts, compositions of a personal nature, so on--I will happily take these on at a comparable rate.[1]

Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in English with a minor in writing

Initiate of international collegiate honors society for English scholarship, Sigma Tau Delta

Active member of the International Association of Professional Writers and Editors (IAPWE)

Former lit editor for award-winning university literary arts magazine

Prior employment in tutoring and teaching English, as well as copy-editing and content writing

Nearly 20 years' writing experience

Previous experience as both fic writer and beta

Incisive eye for typo-hunting and tenacious attention to detail (I have high standards and will make those everybody else's problem... now for pay!)

I will read for content of any genre and all ratings, and am broadly[2] open to any subject matter, kinks, et cetera. I'll also post more detailed guidelines (booking process, any exclusions, additional criteria) on a separate, unrebloggable post so that any edits and updates are always current.

Message me via the chat feature on Tumblr, or send me an e-mail (I will post it on my more info post) to request a quote, bid for a slot, or just to see what I can offer for whatever project you have in mind. And please feel encouraged to share or boost this post! I am in urgent need of any income I can get, and every share counts 😭🙌

. . . . . . . . . .

Proofreading Full Details · Other Services · Support Me (alternatively, Tip this post!)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

[1] There will be some exclusions to this, such as academic assignments/papers that have style guide requirements; i.e., I will not be your online MLA style checker or anything.

[2] As with anything, there will be sporadic exceptions to this as well, but I will always be up-front about such cases.

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 530

The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliot Collection

Robert E. Harrist, Jr. and Wen C. Fong, et al.

The Art Museum, Princeton University / Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1999

Published to accompany a traveling exhibit between 1999-2001, this book presents highlights from Princeton University’s John B. Elliot Collection, one of the most comprehensive collections of Chinese calligraphy outside of Asia. With works dating from the fourth through the twentieth centuries, the collection illustrates the extraordinary variety of formats and styles that makes shu-fa—“the way of writing”—so visually stunning. Arguing, through presentation and nine scholarly essays, that calligraphy is integral to Chinese culture, this is a beautifully organized and composed book, filled with nearly 500 images to enrich the soul.

[girafeduvexin]

Pour être tout à fait honnête sur la discussion sur la bibliothèque de Glucksmann, il y a effectivement cet article pas inintéressant, même si j'aimerais qu'il essaie plus de proposer des solutions pour désembourgeoiser la bibliothèque que de pointer les erreurs de citation chez des personnalités publiques.

Laure Murat, dans Proust familial, parle de sa famille noble qui lit peu, même pas du tout, mais qui se prétend critique littéraire néanmoins, c'est très intéressant.

Plutôt que de répéter "Exhiber sa bibliothèque et son goût pour la littérature, c'est de l'élitisme bourgeois" ce qui est encore une fois vrai mais insuffisant, j'aimerais qu'on dise, comme Ismatu Gwendolyn l'écrit ici, que la lecture est pour tous et qu'on ne doit pas la laisser être réservée à une élite.

Bonus : j'adore ces deux passages, le début où iel décrit magnifiquement le rôle du prof

Et ensuite, quand iel dit en quoi lire est différent que de regarder une vidéo, parce que c'est exactement ça et sans doute pour cette raison que la littérature est mon art préféré.

[hartzvillerangleterre2024]

Visite guidée de Bristol sur le thème du Street Art avec atelier peinture au pochoir et essai de graffitis.

C'était génial !

[ptns-orageuses-rpg]

TW — drogue inventée (légère mention), oppressions (mention).

LES CATACOMBES

Il y a eu la cruauté, les discriminations ; et devant la haine, on s'est organisé là où on ne nous trouvera pas. Les communes altérées se construisent comme des oasis, cachés des non-altéré·es, où on peut vivre en paix. La plus connue, Providence, se dresse en cathédrale géante au-dessus du Point Némo. Elles sont, toutes, autogérées ; c'est-à-dire que les altéré·e·s les composant en prennent les décisions ensemble. En France, il en existe deux : une perdue dans les Alpes, l'autre située dans les Catacombes de Paris. Les galeries ne s'ouvrent que pour nous. Les non-altéré·es ont leur partie, on a la notre. Nos catacombes sont aménagées. Il y a des échelles pour les explorer, des appliques au mur pour les éclairer. Sur les carrefours, des pancartes ; mieux vaut quand même y descendre avec quelqu'un qui s'y connaît déjà pour éviter de se faire avaler tout rond.

POINTS NÉVRALGIQUES

C'est comme des lieux de rencontres ; des endroits où les galeries finissent par déboucher. Ils forment des petits villages, avec une bonne hauteur sous plafond, où l'on se sent presque pas sous terre. Certains cultivent même de la végétation ; c'est le cas du Refuge de Bescel.

LA COUR DES MIRACLES Zone de non-droit où on fait la loi. L'endroit où ta mère t'interdit d'y aller. Non, mais ; il y a des petites boutiques sympa à côté des boites de nuit et des bars. La nuit, tout le monde s'y rend pour s'éclater le crâne, se bruler les sinus, se percer les tympans. La journée, tout est fermé : la cour des miracles reste vide jusqu'à la tombée de la nuit, elle se remet de sa gueule de bois. Là-bas, t'y trouves tes meilleurs potes, des gens qui fêtent toutes sortes de choses ; des types recherchées par la loi, en cavale depuis 40 ans. Il y a plein d'histoires qui se racontent là-bas, plein d'histoires qui s'écrivent aussi.  C'est aussi le paradis parfait pour l'Érythryle et pour celles et ceux qu'organisent une révolution sans paillettes, mais avec beaucoup d'artifices.

LES THERMES Des galeries inondées ; où l'eau, purifiée et chauffée, permet de s'y baigner. C'est bas de plafond, mais bien éclairé. Des altéré·es y vivent, dans des alvéoles, mais c'est surtout l'endroit où celles et ceux qu'ont besoin de flotte pour respirer peuvent se reposer. On s'organise, comme on peut, pour aller les voir, leur parler ; faire des soirées. On commence à y faire pousser des plantes, à décorer l'endroit, mais ça reste bien sommaire : on en est qu'au début.

LE REFUGE DE BESCEL Le bâtiment, en Art déco, serpente dans les galeries, les ouvrent, les embellit. Il y a une partie à la surface, un dôme de verre pour laisser passer la lumière sur les jardins. Ses bras sont bâtis de vieilles pierres, l'acier se rouille, se fait vieux. Mais il y a un odeur de confort dans la poussière qui s'y repose. À l'intérieur, il ressemble à un orphelinat bloqué dans le temps. Il y a des rires, des pleurs quelques fois, mais tout le monde essaie de rendre l'endroit joli. C'est un effort commun, de toute la communauté, pour qu'il tienne debout. Et putain qu'il est précaire son équilibre. Certain·es altéré·es se la jouent profs, d'autres toubibs ; certains sont payés, travaillent jour et nuit là-dedans, d'autres viennent lorsqu'iels ont le temps. Ça arrive que des gens malintentionnés essaient de s'en prendre à la bâtisse. Et pour ça, t'as des types de la Cour des Miracles qui en assurent sa protection.

Il y a beaucoup d'animaux dans le refuge : des chats et des chiens, surtout. Le Refuge de Bescel a un partenariat avec la SPA. Les cabots aident souvent les altéré·es, il est pas rare d'en dresser certains pour qu'ils deviennent de véritables alliés. Les chats, eux, permettent à certains pensionnaires de trouver un peu de calme. Ça apporte un soutien, de la vie et un peu de réconfort.

À NOTER : Pour les altéré·es handi·es, on a creusé des galeries pour elleux. Elles sont sans échelles, avec des pentes plus abordables et des aides pour s'y déplacer. Si ça reste trop compliqué, on s'organise. Il y a des altéré·es spécialement formé·es à descendre celles et ceux qui peuvent pas le faire seul·es. Ça s'organise entre les concerné·es, c'est plutôt bien foutu et c'est dans l'écoute du respect et des besoins de chacun.

[enoughslices]

Do you subscribe to the notion that Scully had a punk phase? If so, when? If not, what style do you think she would like or may have taken up? I could ask the same for Mulder— do you have any preconceived notions of his stylistic choices that we may not have been shown in the show?

- Your Secret Santa!

Hi Secret Santa! I hope you are ready for a TED talk on the one million ways I can imagine Scully's fashion life 😂 First of all, I'm not generally a person with any one strong head canon about most things, so I enjoy it a lot of different ways in fics and art! I can promise you that if you go for whatever style choice feels right to you, I'm going to absolutely love it!! With that being said, I can definitely imagine Scully having had a punk phase, maybe in high school but especially in college. And I think the punk Scully fics and art are always super cute and fun! I could see her being someone whose "teenage rebellion" comes a little late, because canonically she's such a high achiever but also doesn't shy away from making choices her family doesn't understand or support. Like maybe as a teen military brat she just kind of didn't rock the boat but once she's off at college she does all of the style/identity experimentation she didn't do at home yet. In canon she's generally pretty straight-laced in terms of her style, but we do see some examples of her in earlier seasons in like... more fun, put-together casual or casual dressy clothes. So I could also imagine her being one of those people who seem kind of normcore at first glance but as you get to know them, you discover that they're super weird (compliment), actually, it's just lightly disguised by a messy bun, a stanley, and a girlypop fleece (recent era lol, so translated to 80s or 90s just like slightly preppy conservative-casual basics? Not cutting edge or super-duper trendy but also well within the general swath of what was common/popular at the time). I feel like the moire taffeta prom dress is an example of this lolll but 1) that was high school and 2) I'm always in full support of ignoring canon and just vibing however we want to! I do think that the workplace (if it's Quantico or Hoover) isn't really a place she shows her freak (in terms of fashion at least lol) and honestly I think the combo of early 90s + Scully intentionally trying to seem older and more professional at her job can justify a lot of her early season work fashions. Re: Mulder, my hottest take/unpopular opinion is that Mulder's canonical ties aren't actually terrible lmao! For the most part, they're pretty good quality ties that a slightly fashionable guy in the early 90s would have grabbed at a Nordstrom (department store) or whatever and felt pleased with his choices 😂 I see him in general as someone who is a little vain about his appearance; he does take some care with his clothes (I accept the Armani suits they put DD in as fact ahaha), and I do think he kind of wants to be/feel a little bit cool (poor boy lol). Whatever he's wearing when he's younger, I think it probably betrays some striving. Like, he's Trying™️. I also get a lot of joy out of imagining him as an absurd graphic tee guy (esp in AUs but sometimes in other contexts too, goofy cryptid t-shirts, et cetera). He definitely owns some novelty boxers lol. I also think he's the kind of guy who just seems a little cleancut no matter how edgy he tries to be. I headcanon him coming from money based on canon clues (the Martha's Vineyard and multiple properties of it all), but I could imagine him feeling self-conscious about that/trying to distance himself from it a bit when he's younger. Depends on the era/setting I guess, but it's fun to imagine younger him with :spins wheel: floppy hair and a ratty sweater but still just emanating Sad New England Wealthy Puppy Dog Boy against all of his better efforts 😂😂😂 Oh my gosh, I'm sorry for writing you an entire essay! You're the best, Secret Santa! Please do whatever you feel inspired to do and know that I will love it all!! <3 <3 <3